Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday June 28, 2010 @12:03PM
from the strength-of-heart dept.

Research by Kurt Gray, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard, shows that a person's capacity for willpower and physical endurance increases if they perceive themselves as good or evil. "Evil" acts in particular give a person a large boost in physical strength. From the article: “'People perceive those who do good and evil to have more efficacy, more willpower, and less sensitivity to discomfort,' Gray said. 'By perceiving themselves as good or evil, people embody these perceptions, actually becoming more capable of physical endurance.' Gray’s findings run counter to the notion that only those blessed with heightened willpower or self-control are capable of heroism, suggesting instead that simply attempting heroic deeds can confer personal power."

I really hate that scene. Lucas dropped that line to try to move the "force" from being Fantasy Fiction magic (and quell complaints that Star Wars is not science fiction). But it still doesn't explain what "the force" is supposed to be. Are the midichlorians a bunch of tiny wizards ala Harry Potter casing "force" spells everywhere? It's still just nonsense.

This is why I hate Fantasy that tries itself off as "a possible future" science fiction reality. No. No. No. I'm sorry but there will never be magic in our universe..... maybe in some neighboring universe, but not in ours

To anyone living prior to the 1900's, television, the internet, cell phones.. they'd all be magic. You could certainly try to explain the technology away, but likely the explination would also be significantly advanced enough to be percieved as magic. Electron tunneling whoosawhatsits? I just wants my fancy movin' picture porn to come on over the tubes and light up my screen!

Midichlorians may simply be organisms that are capable of exerting heretofore unknown forces in the universe or modifying the interactions of currently known forces (suppressing, increasing, reversing them, whatever). Plants, for example, seem to use quantum entanglement as a part of photosynthesis, according to some recent news stories I've read - why couldn't there be other organisms out there that take advantage of other quirks of physics?

The explanation is bullshit. We are supposed to believe that this blaster having, light speed exceeding, strong AI using galactic society can not figure out and duplicate the 'quirk of physics' embodied in midichlorians? The explanation is magical precisely because it can not be duplicated or even explained technologically by a sufficiently advanced civilization.

The explanation is bullshit. We are supposed to believe that this blaster having, light speed exceeding, strong AI using galactic society can not figure out and duplicate the 'quirk of physics' embodied in midichlorians? The explanation is magical precisely because it can not be duplicated or even explained technologically by a sufficiently advanced civilization.

Pfft, what's advanced AI and cybernetics when you can't bring back the dead? If they still don't know how the organic brain works well enough to have established immortality, then there's just got to be some limits to their knowings, don't there?:P

I really hate that scene. Lucas dropped that line to try to move the "force" from being Fantasy Fiction magic (and quell complaints that Star Wars is not science fiction). But it still doesn't explain what "the force" is supposed to be. Are the midichlorians a bunch of tiny wizards ala Harry Potter casing "force" spells everywhere? It's still just nonsense.

Just look up Orgone and bions [wikipedia.org]. It fits together fairly well complete with a darkside.

If you guys read Asimov's foundation, you should know that Star Wars is just an attempt in taking probably the best series of science fiction ever written and delivering it in a more acessible package for the masses. No, you don't want plausible mutants whith electromagnetic devices that alter other people's perception, you just want a 'force'. Star wars is just Fantasy put in a 80s' hype era.

Sadly you are correct. The men who TAKE are the ones who get sex and marriage (and maybe even some adultery on the side). Us nice guys finish last because women find us "weak" non-confident and unattractive.

I'm reasonably certain that the women who find less selfish men unappetizing are the ones who spend their whole days trying to get "bought"--with too much makeup, revealing clothes, spending too much time thinking about fashion and aesthetics, etc. Those same people have been focused on a lot by media because, well, they're the most photogenic, and easy to portray with bad actors.

To be honest, nice guys deserve better. Hopefully, they will someday learn to stop listening to hyped salespeople in relationsh

Just because you dress sexually doesn't mean you're submissive, from a power perspective. It's also quite certain that the world they live in have different ratings of power than yours or mine. In my case, I'm quite certain that there's a lot of emotions involved in these relationships that I can't really feel or understand.

I don't equate trying to be "bought" with being submissive. Again, it's a question of salesmanship, and in many cases, sleazy salesmanship.

Relationships can happen normally, where you find someone you like and you hit it off. You might find you have a lot in common and that you enjoy sharing with one another, and you only rarely rub each other the wrong way.

Alternately, one side or the other can do a sales pitch, and being a (straight) man myself, I only really watch the women doing it--wearing makeup, cl

I've read before (and found it to be true in subsequent observation) that part of the reason assholes get the girl and nice guys don't is that a lot of "nice guys" have the idea that projecting sexual desire/sexual desirability is "not nice". Probably b/c the methods most young men use to project sexual confidence and desire ARE rude, boorish and assholish. So the nice guy equates sexual aggressiveness with the undesirable methods of expressing this he sees in his peers when he is first developing, and basically emasculates himself in order to be non-threatening (an "asshole" as he sees it). They put themselves out there as a sexual non-entity, so are seen that way by women. Assholes don't care about being non-threatening; they want what they want and don't bother to hide it. So the asshole makes a woman feel desirable, the nice guy makes her feel comfortable.

"Move on to another one" is the advice I give to "nice guys" who are absolutely fixated on one girl, especially one who clearly isn't interested in them and\or doesn't even know they exist. This is a tremendously common problem.

Even if you're looking for love above all else, why would you waste your time on someone who isn't interested in you?

Nice guys don't date for sex, they date for love or at least "like". "move on to another one" is a bad-boy strategy.

Eh, sex is part of it, a fantastic part, but not the whole.

"Move on to another one" is the advice I give to "nice guys" who are absolutely fixated on one girl, especially one who clearly isn't interested in them and\or doesn't even know they exist. This is a tremendously common problem.

Even if you're looking for love above all else, why would you waste your time on someone who isn't interested in you?

Amendment: Nice guys don't date to be loved, they date because they do love. They're stuck in a romantic notion that if they're nice enough, the one girl they really love will take notice. And they're too nice to date a girl that's 2nd best because they know they couldn't completely commit. BTW, there is an XKCD for this. http://xkcd.com/513/ [xkcd.com]

Oh, bullshit. Women do want a man who is self-confident. Being self-confident is not the same as not being "nice". Grow a sack, learn how to communicate directly irl, learn how to not be doormat for women, and maybe you'll be taken seriously by one.

A radical political party quickly takes over one of the mightiest industrialized nations in the world, rallies its citizens to world war and the dehumanization of a significant part of the population, and it was totally unorganized? Sorry, but I think your hate is blinding you so much that you've lost the ability to objectively see the situation.

Actually, I think you could make the case that the Nazi party's rise to power (and Hitler's in particular) was illegal, or at least extralegal, given that most of the power shifts were the result of late-night coups and street shootings. On the other hand, the Enabling Act, which essentially dissolved Parliament, was passed through in a legal manner. I suspect that most leaders, either famous for their goodness or infamous for their evil, work outside of the law to make their agendas happen.

I don't think the Nazis were even lawful evil, since they were quite ready to violate their own laws if it suited them. But they weren't chaotic evil - that would be more like, say, Manson. "Neutral Evil" might better describe them...

Perhaps the best description of Lawful evil might be Jim Jones, and various other leaders who perish with their cults. They are following their own laws, even to their own doom.

Of course, where D&D steps out of touch with reality (besides, you know, with every single

"Lawful Evil" really requires a very specific type of insanity, where the person is beholden to their own laws and can't just remake those laws arbitrarily. The only real-world analogue for this that I can think of is Mao. Hitler, Stalin and most of the other dictators from both the political left and political right had a very arbitrary and capricious outlook on the law - laws were for others and not for them. Which is not what someone who was truly of the outlook "Lawful" would operate...

Not really. The "well-oiled machine" image of Nazism was mostly propaganda. In fact, it was mostly run on nepotism and personal favoritism. The parts of the German war machine that were well-organized and worked according to well-laid out policies with those parts that were there *before* the Nazis (like the General Staff).

There's no escaping reason, no evading purpose, because we both know, that without purpose there is no reason to exist. It is purpose that created us, purpose that connects us, purpose that pulls us, that guides us, that drives us, that defines us, it is purpose that binds us.

Good and Evil are engines of purpose that sustain people longer than purpose for a given pr

MAURER: Well, I think this is always a debate and I think we do make a clear distinction between our neutrality as an instrument of foreign policy and what we think as individuals and what the country thinks.

OLIVER: But then, the neutrality issue seems complicated. Now obviously, Hitler did some very bad things, we know that. How do you focus on the positive things to balance that out?

Gray’s findings run counter to the notion that only those blessed with heightened willpower or self-control are capable of heroism, suggesting instead that simply attempting heroic deeds can confer personal power.

See? You can will yourself to have heroic physical capabilities! Batman *isn't* bullshit! He may have bought his fame, and all his cool gadgets, but that doesn't stop him from willing himself into a superhero. Thank you, modern science, for seeing the light.

That's been established for a really long time. Winding up in texts from the Bhagavad Gita to The Art Of War. And frequently gets parodied in western pop culture. It's somewhat tied into the great strength of chimps. Chimps don't have really have any more muscle than a similarly sized person, but so much of our muscles are used to control precise movements that we lose out a lot on strength. Similarly by clearing the mind of doubt we can cease fighting with ourselves and become far more powerful and coordin

Chimps don't have really have any more muscle than a similarly sized person, but so much of our muscles are used to control precise movements that we lose out a lot on strength.

As I heard it, it's actually that we just don't activate as many muscle clusters simultaneously as chimps do. It's not about fine motor control when it comes to big muscles like the quadriceps or biceps, it's just that we're optimized for endurance over strength.

And when we do activate all of our muscles at once, we tend to injure o

You are on it exactly. Humans are optimized for endurance over strength.
Chimps tend to have denser muscles with more long fibers and they also tend to have much denser bones. The 5-8X often quoted is an exaggeration, but in terms for short term force they are substantially stronger than us.
There are some details for the laymen at: http://www.slate.com/id/2212232 [slate.com]

The type of self control mentioned in TFS isn't "I probably shouldn't eat another donut", it's "oh fuck my legs are really tired and sore, I wanna go lie down", and getting a boost of adrenaline would help you push through that kind of thing.

"Confront them with annihilation, and they will then survive; plunge them into a deadly situation, and they will then live. When people fall into danger, they are then able to strive for victory."Sun Tzu

Now the Olympics are going to look like a convention of superheroes and supervillains, with each athlete alignment-doping him or herself with more and more outrageous costumes, posturing, and pre-event monologues.

"Sure, he hurled the discus five miles, but did he really have to soak it in the blood of five virgins and dedicate his performance to All-Mighty Set?"

"Writing stories about harming people" releases hormones, adrenaline that increases endurance. Helping people gives an endorphine reward that gives the person more capacity to endure pain. So if I easily fall into a state of seething rage, does that mean I have an easier time accessing this power boost? And what has that to do with "good and evil?"

IMHO they missed the mark on this one.It's not about good or evil, it's about catering to the ego's sense of importance.

Speaking from personal experience, if I am going out of my way to commit a personal sacrifice in the name goodness, then my sense of importance becomes expanded for the duration of the act.For example, if you're running a marathon for a charity you believe in. Suddenly, you may find the wordly measurements of your physical endurance to be exhibiting increased levels.

Are you a super human? No.You're just willing to grit your teeth and take a little more pain. Because it's *important* and what you're doing is *important* and the ego just eats it up.

As fast as you run, you would run faster if you knew a lion were chasing you or if you truly believed a lion were chasing you. Neither good nor evil is a lion, but they were created by mankind for similar effects.

lately I started to observe this: the stronger you think you are, the stronger you are. and the smarter you think you are, the dumber you are.

Indeed, and the number one reason someone disagrees with you is not because they don't understand what you do, but they understand all that fully, plus they understand some other things you don't. An intelligent man asks such a person why they think what they do, in light of this or that. An idiot tells such a person that they are the idiot, and explains what he or she knows without even asking what the other person knows that they don't, assuming simply that the other person must be dull for not having reached the same conclusion as themselves. And they encounter this so often, they soon convince themselves that the world is full of idiots. There's probably a direct correlation between how stupid someone is and how widespread they believe stupidity is among other people.